How to Keep Your iMessages Synced Across All Devices

If you’re an Apple acolyte like me you probably have at least one Mac, at least one iPad, and an iPhone. Using Messages across all of them is supposed to be seamless, and it is, but only if you do it right. Here’s how to do that.

Unify on AppleID Email

You can send Messages to other Apple users via both emails and phone numbers. This makes it highly compatible with whatever the other person is using, but it messes up your sync mojo because if you send or receive to a phone number you can’t pick up that conversation later on a non-phone device.

So what you need to do is standardize on how you send and receive Messages, and lock in on your AppleID email address. Here are the steps:

On your iPhone, force quit Messages

Go to Settings -> Messages

Select “Use my AppleID”

Pick the email address you’ll associate with it (should be just the one)

Configure your “Start Conversations From” to be that same email address

Go to your other devices and do the same (Messages -> Preferences on Mac)

For best results, delete your old conversations

Now, when you start a new conversation with someone (assuming they’ve fixed their mess as well) you’re source will be your email address, and their destination will be theirs. So when you switch between your iPhone, your iPad, or your Mac(s), you’ll have a unified thread!